November, 2007
The Blue-Bleeding Media
Bryan Griffin
The real reason for print media’s declining popularity is its inherent liberal bias
On July 30th, 2007, a major breakthrough took place. A breakthrough that few saw coming, but many found shocking. New York Times Op-Ed contributors Michael E. O’Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack, admittedly “harsh criticizers of the Bush administration” wrote an article entitled “A War We Just Might Win” in which they made numerous concessions to the possibility of a stable Iraq, secure country, and successful war. After nearly seven years of reporting the Iraq war as a failure from the start and burying glimmers of success in the 17th and 18th pages of the paper, The New York Times, as well as numerous other media outlets are admitting that the Iraqi objective may just be one that took time and patience to achieve... Read more.
The Debate is Not Over
Ashley Emans
Maybe he can’t take the “heat”, but Al Gore refuses to listen to the many rebuttals to global warming
Since the 1800s, Earth’s average temperature has risen one degree. Out of this fact, politicians have created the myth of global warming. Atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased 30% in the same amount of time, leading many to fear a greenhouse effect in the future. However, all reasonable human efforts cannot alter future weather... Read more.
HillaryCare: You Get What You Pay For
Johnathan Lott
A first hand account of the horrors of socialized healthcare.
Unlike almost everyone else at UF, who benefit from either their parent’s healthcare policies or from the University’s affordable insurance and free health services, I have actually had an experience with socialized medicine. And contrary to what Michael Moore and most Congressional Democrats will tell you, it’s terrible... Read more.
Get Your Hands Off of My Arms
David Polakoff
Allow me to juxtapose two situations:
- Kennesaw, Georgia. After a violent shooting in 1982, Kennesaw required that all heads of a household must own and maintain a handgun with ammunition, unless one is morally opposed to owning a handgun, is a convicted felon, cannot afford a handgun, or has a disability of some kind. Pundits all over predicted that the city would turn into “Gun Town USA” where there would be wild west-style shootouts to resolve disagreements.
- After 16 students and their teacher were shot and killed in 1997, Britain banned citizen use of handguns.
And here we are in 2007. Logic would tell you that Britain is a place free of guns where people walk around smiling while Kennesaw is a ghost town after everyone shot each other. So let’s catch up with the two situations... Read more.
A Commitment
Frank Colosi
A first hand account of reconstruction in Iraq
In a chilly spring month in 2007, an audience was taken back to April 21, 2003. This was the first day Col. Kimberly Olson saw Baghdad. During her speech the right-hand woman of Lt. Gen. Jay Garner spoke about her experience in Iraq. She was second in command of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, or ORHA. Her mission was to help rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure, provide humanitarian assistance, and help strengthen the new government... Read more.
Humor
By David Polakoff
News Media or Entertainment?
The media today spends nearly half its time covering the lives and concerns of Hollywood celebrities. Fear not! The Florida Frontier can gossip too...Marceau Passes Away
On September 22nd, world-famous French mime Marcel Marceau passed away at the age of 84. In memory of Marceau, mimes the world over held a moment of noise upon hearing the news... Read more.
To Freedom
Anthony Aspesi
The most important reason the U.S. military is in Iraq right now is to prevent al Qaeda from establishing a strong hold there where they can base their operations from Iraq like they did in Afghanistan. In General Petraeus’ report to Congress, he made it clear that Iraq is a central front in the War on Terror for al Qaeda and that a victory for al Qaeda would be an incredible boost to their morale. His colleague, General Jones said, “Terrorists groups including al Qaeda are at war to achieve their goal of establishing an Islamic caliphate in Iraq.”... Read more.
Grab Bag
Convenient Inaccuracies
Reported in the New York Times
The Nobel Peace Prize has lost all integrity. A lawsuit filed in Britain caused Gore’s Inconvenient Truth to face review in court - 11 major inaccuracies within the film were exposed... Read more.
Accomplishments in Iraq
As reported by the United States Central Command in Tampa, Florida
Comments and Quotations from Senator Hillary Clinton, by date:
- 6/29/2004 - “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”
- 5/29/2007 - “It’s time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few, and for the few...and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity.”
- 6/4/2007 - “(We)...can’t just let business as usual go on, and that means something has to be taken away from some people.”
- 6/4/2007 - “We have to build a political consensus and that requires people to give up a little bit of their own...in order to create this common ground.”
- 6/4/2007 - “I certainly think the free market has failed.”
- 9/2/2005 - “I think it’s time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in [the] entire economy that they are being watched.”
The True Character of Liberty
Matt Mitchell
At the risk of appearing crude, the passage of time and the recurrence of certain philosophical debates in American politics lends credence to describing the politics du jour as “new ideas that amount to the same old s***”. Perhaps more than any other issue can this more illustratively be said than the question of American federalism and the continuing debate over the nature of “states’ rights”. This month the Congress, rather under the radar of the American people, has debated the highly controversial No Child Left Behind Act, set to expire on September 30. Passing the Congress by wide margins in 2002, the bill established federal standards for “adequate yearly progress” in reading and math proficiency as well as teacher qualifications as conditions for retaining federal funding to public schools... Read more.
Reexamining the Republican Party
Lyle Kossis
A look back at traditional conservatism
In today’s parlance, a conservative or a Republican is usually aligned with someone who favors making abortion illegal, thinks the United States should actively engage other countries in pre-emptive war in the name of either “spreading democracy” or fighting the “War on Terror,” and shows a willingness to enact one’s beliefs, not only about religion, into law... Read more.
A Tale of Two Houses
House 1:
- A 20 room mansion with 8 bathrooms and a pool and pool house.
- Heated entirely by natural gas.
- Consumes more energy in one month than an average American household per year. (Avg. bill over $2,400 a month), as reported by Cybercast News Service
- Located in Tennessee, not a place where winters would demand such extreme energy usage.
House 2:
- 4 bedrooms
- On a prairie in the American southwest
- Has a central closet that holds a geothermal heat pump to heat house, which consumes only 25% of the normal electricity required for such a heating/cooling system.
- Does not use natural gas or fossil fuels to regulate temperature.
- Has a 25,000 gallon cistern to collect rainwater from roof.
- Waste water is purified at the house and then added to rainwater cistern.
- Cistern is used to irrigate the multitude of native planted and maintained on the property and around the house.
Can you guess who owns which house?
House #1 is owned by a man who is above environmental conservation, Al Gore.
House #2 is owned by our President, George W. Bush.
Sources: CNS News, March 1st 2007, “Bush’s Ranch House ‘Far More Eco-Friendly’ Than Gore’s” by Randy Hall; Snopes.com “Glass Houses” 2007 investigation.